The Yale Versus Jail Problem in College Acceptance

Acceptance rates at selective colleges have been declining for decades. This is a function of increasing college enrollments on a whole and the fact that the system is now under capacity. Furthermore, American college prestige is based more on how many are turned down than how many are admitted.

The ultimate reason for booming demand is that access to college, especially prestigious ones, has become the arbiter of economic opportunity.

However, the ultimate reason for booming demand is that access to college, especially prestigious ones, has become the arbiter of economic opportunity. People continue to enroll in college because a college degree has become the threshold requirement for access to middle-class status and earnings. Between 1973 and 2008, the share of jobs requiring education beyond high school has more than doubled to 59 percent from 28 percent. According to our own projections, the future promises more of the same. As a result, college acceptance rates won’t be increasing again anytime soon.

Declining college acceptance rates are both good and bad news. The good news is that the competition for prestige is increasing the overall quality of American higher education. Between 1994 and 2006, for example, the number of institutions in Barron's top two tiers ballooned to 472 from 399.

The bad news is that the system is more and more stratified by race, ethnicity and family income.

The bad news is that the American postsecondary system is more and more stratified by race, ethnicity and family income, especially as acceptance rates decline. Half of the annual enrollments are now concentrated in what the Barron's rankings call the "competitive four-year colleges and the other half of annual enrollments are concentrated in community colleges and other sub-baccalaureate institutions at the bottom of the selectivity tiers.

Ultimately, this leads to diminished access, and some students are left out of the system entirely. For elite students, it is not the choice between Yale and jail. There are hundreds of schools lining up to take Ivy League rejectees.

For less-advantaged students, however, not getting to attend college means a lifetime of low-wage jobs instead of economic and social mobility. And that is a future we cannot accept.